The US debt-ceiling legislative dogfight ratcheted up a notch on Friday morning when President Obama's campaign staff launched a Twitter-bombing run on US legislators.
Shortly after Obama made a short statement in which he urged Americans to "make a phone call, send an email, tweet; keep the pressure on Washington," @BarackObama …

COMMENTS

Why bother?

Tweeting? He could ask some of his nastier departments to arrange accidents for the Tea Party;or maybe disappear a few "pour encourager les autres". Whats the point of being President if you don't get to press the Special Forces button now and again? Lame! Use a big stick Obama, we'd all understand! They're nutters!

Really?

That kind of thing worked so well for Nixon didn't it. Although if it would get that incompetent fool to resign and we could get an adult in the White House, from either party - if there are any, then hell yes go for it.

I'm sure sarcasm tags are missing

For Real Leadership???

Where is Obama's leadership? Last week Gallop has his approval rating at only 40%. His own party won't listen to him. He's been frozen out of the budget talks by Pelosi who won't even let him into the room.

It's sad that Obama has to tweet like a teenager desperate for attention.

Happy Birthday

Voters asked for gridlock and got it, how nice. Want some cake?

Now if only there was a way to stop the Fed from doing something stupid like shooting the QE3 bullet. We've already run out of feet and smarter nations like Cambodia are pushing the dollar aside. The debt ceiling won't matter much when folks start saying things like, "Sure we can float you some cash but only if you pay us back in Yen".

No compromise!

Stop wasting our money. Get out of all the sand countries. Stop giving our money away to lazy people and corporations! We already get taxed too much and if you tax the rich, they'll just hide their money... If you just try to fix this with taxes we'll never get out of this hole. The federal government is looking more and more like California all the time, and that is not a compliment.

The Tea Party folks are single issue and in the past I would of thought that a single issue group was naive. It is now time to stop growing the government and make people be more responsible for themselves.

taxed too much?

Numbers

Yes, those "lazy people" are such a burden. You know the elderly that receive Social Security? Which by the way accounts for more of the budget than all of the other income security provisions combined. Oh and by the way if you look at the data you'll see those provisions are already on a downward trend.

Way too many

There are way too many countries that we give money too that hates us. Time to cut the aid, time for the UN to find other funding as well. Korea, time to start ponying up money for OUR military services. If not, I'm sure NK will provide theirs for free, they'll be right over to show you their capabilities.

Typical american - does not know his own nation history

In the days when America had a balanced budget americans were taxed _MUCH_ _MORE_ especially in the higher earner bracket.

What America is seing now is the result of the final convulsions of Reaganomics. Reagan cut those taxes to produce a rather unnatural, premature and forced exit from the 70-es recession. He however did not cut the spending far enough to match. In fact there was no chance in hell he could cut it without USA stopping to function as a country (even if we ignore the rather astronomical bill for the operation "Bankrupt the commies" AKA the first Afghanistan War).

The situation has not changed much since. The USA as a country has still the same liabilities - police, judiciary, etc, their pensions, their benefits, their salaries. Compared to that the military budget is A) small change, B) can be considered as an economical aid package to selected states.

It does not matter how much will be cut from Medicaid or medicare and how many small wars will be stopped. That does not change the fundamental problem which all presidents in the last 20+ years have inherited from Reagan. The removal of taxation from both corporations and high earners have made the pot so imbalanced that there is no chance in hell for it to be balanced and there are much bigger "basic state functionality" bills than either one of these small programs.

Not understanding this (and not knowing where it all started) means that you need to check your brain examined - it may be matching Reagan mental faculties (or it may be naturally on the same level).

Any way, not that we over here will not have to eat the sam sh*** from a rather unsuccessful bout of mini-Reaganomics known as Brownomics.

Hmm

"There are way too many countries that we give money too that hates us. Time to cut the aid, time for the UN to find other funding as well."

US foreign aid is already close to the lowest from any developed country, at about 1% of the budget. The US budget is something like $3.5tn, and you will save about $40bn. Oh, and kick-start some lovely new world poverty and associated wars/terrorism.

But you've saved $40bn/year. What about the other $1.5tn/year defecit?

(By comparison, the UK is committed to spending 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid by 2013. The US currently spends about 0.3% of GDP on foreign aid.)

Re: Typical american - does not know his own nation history

"... (even if we ignore the rather astronomical bill for the operation "Bankrupt the commies" AKA the first Afghanistan War)."

I assume you want to ignore it because it was mostly run by a Democrat by the name of Charlie Wilson so you can't pin those costs on Reagan?

"does not change the fundamental problem which all presidents in the last 20+ years have inherited from Reagan"

IIRC, Bill Clinton had a surplus going for a bit there. Should I mention that the average tax rate under Clinton was almost 2% lower than the average rate under Reagan or that for Obama it's about 6% below Reagan's?

That said, I take your point the giant ballooning of federal spending can mostly be attributed to Reagan but it isn't like any President since has even tried to pull back because now a spending cut means they are only going to spend 6% more than the rate of inflation instead of spending 8% more.

people be more responsible for themselves

Foreign Aid

Let's clear up a couple of common misconceptions.

Foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a free gift. Most often it's an incentive for a foreign government. You may question the morality of handing tens of millions of dollars worth of aid a year to the Kingdom of Randomistan or the Republica Bananera Centroamericana in exchange for their cooperation in the War on Terror/War on Drugs but it's a hell of a lot cheaper than invading and occupying.

(Me, I'm all for ending the Wars on Nouns but that's beside the point).

Foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a cash reward. It's (usually) more in the nature of store credit: "We'll give you $200 million worth of credit but you can only buy items we approve from suppliers we approve at prices they set." A lot of the time the purchases are actually carried out by the US Gov't itself and the goods simply delivered, for example in rearming the Afghan security forces. Effectively it's a subsidy of US industry.

Much of the time, foreign aid as practiced by the USA is not a gift at all. It's simply a low-interest loan. And when the Friendly Tyrant of an Unfriendly Country gets overthrown, guess who gets to pay for the bullets said Friendly Tyrant has been putting in the Unfriendly Natives all these years?

So, yeah, by all means USA should cut foreign aid. After all, it's not like it buys the USA influence way out of proportion to expenditure AND appeases the dirty longhair libruls, right?

Moron

The rich already hide their money. They're making more than they ever have, yet it does not result in more jobs, just a richer upper class. Stop regurgitating O'reilly's talk-points, that guy is a moron and so are you if you believe anything he says. You would assuredly vote for your own execution if the republicans told you that living was for socialists. Stop being a sheep and look at the bigger picture. A higher percentage of GDP is going to corporate shareholders than at any other time in history, and taxes are lower than they've been in decades. How can they create jobs, if there's nobody in this country that can afford to use the services they offer. The economy is top-heavy, you idiots have BEEN getting your tax breaks for years, yet you still cry for more. Does it fix anything? Nope. Stop letting Hannity and crew do your thinking for you and start thinking for yourself.

Forth to the past

The United States ain't the "West", buddy.

The "West" also includes the rest of the Americas (more or less) most of Europe, and ex-Dominions in Oceania.

Some parts of the "West" aren't doing so well. Others are. Norway, despite its problems with Brievik, is at the top of the league in HDI. Australia comes second. Just because the US is in a bind does give you an excuse to say the "West" is in decline.

And ...

What an arse

He has no plan of his own, and his party filibusters their own bill in the Senate. His 2006 speech as Senator when the debt limit was raised does not match his actions today.

The man's approval ratings are in the toilet and will remain there. He never was a master of technology, he was only a master of marketing. Now he realizes there is no way to advertise his product that anyone can stomach, and that's only one of the things he has in common with a douche.

Ipso Facto Dipshitso

His approval ratings are in the toilet because the racist right-wing bible-thumping bigots hate him on principle, and the left wing party things he doesn't stand up to those jackasses nearly enough.

The Republicans are going to screw this country hardcore like some sort of bukake scene, and then blame the aftermath on him. Then they'll get back in the driver's seat and drive this country right off a cliff.

Figures. You need to Google the proper terms to get a valid result:

"White House Debt Reduction Plan" or possibly "White House debt ceiling plan". Neither of those produce links pointing to any actual plan. Which is rather the point which is starting to be made by reporters, and which seems to get James "pants on fire" Carney's knickers in a twist.

As for the document you found, it's part of the reason we're in the current mess. The other of course being that for the 2 years of 100% Dem control, there were neither budgets, nor increases in the debt ceiling. They could have done it then and avoided the mess now. Of course, that would have let the tax and spend cat out of the bag.

Republifail/Teatard Express

I don't know what he thinks that's going to do. The Republicans just want the US to fail because that will be pinned on Obama. And then the second they get in, they'll cut taxes again, damage protections for those that need them and the country will be in even worse shape, but that's ok, because they didn't have Obama/Carter. and who knows, thanks to his sexual indiscretions, Clinton will be the next Kennedy, an honorary Republican.

Even Moody's starts to smell the coffee

it's called politics, get used to it

Since when was asking constituents to talk to their representatives spamming ? Because the person suggesting this course of action is the President of the US ? Twits who tweet can follow and respond to whoever they like, I can't be bothered myself and simply blacklist those who send me unsolicited bulk email so it stays out of my inbox. Managing a large correspondence is part of the job of any representative in any democracy, especially at a time of crisis.

I take it

Big plans LOL

Sweet Lord. Bunch of Brits commenting on American politics is always funny.

The GOP wants to eliminate big government.Their theory is this : Big government dont work.

To prove their point and stand nice with their rich contributors , they block every piece of legislation that could help the People. So , they break something in order to tell us " look .. it aint working "

And the suckers keep electing them.Says a lot about the average IQ of the average American.

What title?

Who says that everyone responding here is British? Besides, when you're in the forest you sometimes can't see it for what it is, and having an outside opinion is helpful.

And yes, the average IQ of the average American is astonishingly low, and seems to be getting lower too (teaching "Intelligent Design" because evolution is "just a theory", "trickle-down economics", etc). Unfortunately, not enough of the sane people contact their representatives, and the news media spews their completely-biased opinions as fact, and the sheeple who don't know enough take it as fact.

The tea-party backed republicans are going to be the death of this nation if it keeps up. The rest of the republicans don't seem to know which way to go, and their "no compromise" stance is the total opposite of what this nation was founded on. But the democrats don't get away for free either with many of their Big Spending plans (though at least they've been willing to compromise).

Nope - not with a ten foot pole

Not really bipartisan

It just isn't cricket...

.. to accelerate, deify and pornographically chase obscene, unfettered capitalism;let it fuck up; give it a shit load of money to pay itself back;let it fuck up again; and then shout "Look, the black guy broke it!" What a bunch of bastards!

Didn't that George W bloke raise the debt ceiling SEVEN TIMES, whilst simultaneously wasting 3 trillion dollars trying to break the US Army on Iraq?And that is just the money - forget the thousands and thousands of DEAD PEOPLE..

And another thing while I'm at it, and getting annoyed -why does the US working class so happily collaborate in its own enslavement by foaming at the mouth whenever someone mentions "socialism"? What - you'd rather doff your caps to the big money nobs while they are screwing you out of every penny you own?Why isn't there a labour movement in America?Its second only to China for worker mistreatment and abuse!